Security in the IBM i Marketplace

The 2018 IBM i Marketplace Survey included new questions about how the IBM i community is protecting mission-critical data. Robin Tatam discusses the results in the short video below.

Robin Tatam Analyzes the IBM i Marketplace Survey

Hey guys, it's Robin here with HelpSystems. Welcome to this conversation today about the 2018 IBM i Marketplace Survey that we just completed. For the second year in a row, security has come in as the top business challenge that people are dealing with.

72 percent are listing that as a premium item for them to work on in 2018.

What's interesting is the two leading factors of cybersecurity that people are zeroing in on are, first of all, balancing cybersecurity with the availability and management of the application. That's about 40 percent of the people dealing with that as their primary concern.

And then close behind that, just a few points shy, is a skills shortage. So, people are really not feeling comfortable that they know exactly how to secure their environment and how to manage it.

One of the other items that we did within the IBM i Marketplace Survey is identify some of the technologies that are currently in use. I admit that I was a little bit surprised about some of the interpretations people have about security, the tools that are available, and what they're using them for.

33 percent of shops identified that they're using an anti-virus solution on their IBM i system, which is a little bit higher than typically we see in reality through the State of IBM i Security Study that we do every year.

Interestingly, over 50 percent said they had no intention of deploying an anti-virus on their IBM i platform.

We had 36 percent of shops that felt that they were using exit programs to manage network connections like FTP and ODBC, but there was again a pretty large contingent over almost 50 percent that said they had no intention of deploying that.

One of the things that I would challenge you with is certainly to understand when these technologies are appropriate. At least have them on the radar. Anti-virus has become a big thing, of course, on every platform, but that should include your IBM i. When we hear myths about the fact that the platform can't get a virus, we have to carefully understand that. Fortunately, you've got a partner at HelpSystems that can help explain it and show you where the risks lie.

Take advantage of the 2018 IBM i Marketplace Survey. Download it for free from our website and let us know if you have any questions about the technology discussions in there.

Thanks again, see you next time.

The results are in! Read the full report on the IBM i Marketplace Survey.